Sorry for the delay. We are having a little trouble with the Scribus layout program.

It keeps locking up on Graphics editor Mark Locher as he's trying to create a photo page of the Clifton Heights parade. The program keeps locking up when he tries to bring in one of photographer Eric Hartline's pictures.

Associated editor Joe Hart, who has been a driving force all week in getting the project completed, is finishing up our patriotism page. We will have some comments from readers who answered the question: 'What does Patriotism mean to you ?'

Make sure you pick up Sunday's Daily Times to see if your comment makes it.

Reporter John Kopp says he has spoken to a few residents in Chester about a shooting that happened earlier today.

The company has kindly decided to feed us here today. We are also enjoying some Cocco's Pizza.

Welcome back.

Several things going on in the newsroom right now. Reporter John Kopp is checking out the report of a shooting in Chester. There was a building collapse in Brookhaven.

Meanwhile, sports editor Rob Parent and 76ers beat writer Dennis Deitch has joined the sports department to help finish up the paper.

Brian Freeman is working on the obituary pages. We made a decision to do the obits through our regular Quark layout program. The reason is we have a lot of readers who depend on the obits each day and wanted to make sure there weren't any hiccups.

Julia Wilkinson is working on a new newsroom video. Check back for that a little later.

As we push through the day, the newsroom here at the Daily Times is starting to fill up.

Managing editor Linda DeMeglio, reporter John Kopp and copy editor Brian Freeman (all you longtime wrestling fans probably remember his prose from days gone by) have joined the party.

Welcome to the Thunderdome (or, as we call it here, the Daily Times newsroom).

Well, we are starting to put the July 4th paper together. Actually, much of it has been done throughout the week.

Normally, we use a design program called Quark to put pages together. For this edition, we are using a free, web-based program called Scribus. It's taken most of the month to get used to where all the tools are located and get the correct typefaces.

We have it kicked pretty well, but there is still plenty of work to be done.

It's pretty quiet right now, but it will pick up through the afternoon and evening.

Good Morning everybody and all the ships at sea!

We here in the Daily Times newsroom are calling today Ben Franklin Day.

No, we aren't using old time printing presses and linetype (although if you looked at some of our computers you might think we were better off). Today, is the culmination of a month-long project called "The Ben Franklin Project."